The decades of the
1870s and 1880s saw the birth of an
amazing galaxy of British composers,
ranging from the acknowledged masters:
Vaughan Williams, Holst, Bridge, Ireland
and Bax to the great creators of light
music such as Ketèlbey, Coates
and Haydn Wood. Such a cornucopia of
talent must obviously have made for
a highly competitive musical marketplace
in the early twentieth century. As a
result, a number of composers saw better
opportunities awaiting them in the Dominions
and they went off to carry the English
Musical Renaissance and what they had
learned at the RAM and RCM to Canada,
Australia and South Africa. Most prominent
among them were Healy Willan (1880-1968)
who immigrated to Canada in 1913 and
William Henry Bell (1873-1946) who settled
in South Africa in 1912. Australia was
the destination of Edgar Bainton (1880-1956)
in 1934 having been preceded there many
years earlier by Fritz Hart in 1908.
All of them became prominent musical
forces in their adopted countries as
teachers, conductors and administrators
and none would return full-time to their
native land. Prominence abroad probably
did not do very much for their fame
back home as they lacked the exposure
in London that was more readily obtainable
by their stay-at-home contemporaries.
Despite their many decades abroad they
never lost their musical Englishness
as any hearing of their music will easily
attest.
Fritz Hart, the subject
of this CD, has had the least exposure
of this group as each of the others
have had at least some of their orchestral
music - symphonies, in fact - issued
on commercial CDs.
Hart was born in London
in 1874 and started his musical career
ten years later in the choir of Westminster
Abbey. He attended Eton and studied
under Stanford, Parry and George Groves
at the Royal College of Music. He did
some conducting for the D’Oyly Carte
Company before his departure for Australia
where he conducted several years before
being appointed Director of the Melba
Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne
in 1916 where he succeeded another English
transplant, George W. L. Marshall-Hall
(1862-1915). He held this post for twenty-one
years when he moved on to Honolulu in
1937 where he became Inaugural Professor
of Music at the University of Hawaii
and also the conductor of the Honolulu
Symphony Orchestra. There he spent his
remaining years until his death in 1949.
Despite his educational, administrative
and conducting duties he always managed
to be a prodigious creator of music
with more than five hundred works including
22 operas and operettas - many to his
own librettos - as well as symphonic,
chamber, choral, instrumental works
and hundreds of songs. He also wrote
poetry and novels.
The CD at hand is probably
the first opportunity actually to hear
any music by this composer other than
an occasional song that appeared in
an anthology of Australian art songs
- as far as I have been able to determine.
What we have here are two major works
by Hart written for orchestra and both
are quite substantial. According to
Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(Fifth Edition), Hart wrote seventeen
orchestral works (including two with
solo violin). Going by their titles
most of them seem to be of small scale:
overtures, fantasies, and the like.
However, there is a Symphony
from 1934 and the major work recorded
here, the symphonic suite The Bush
from eleven years earlier. From its
structure one might guess that The
Bush started its life as a projected
symphony as its three central movements
can easily be described as a scherzo,
slow movement and finale in quite classical
forms. These are sandwiched in between
two very impressionistic and often languorous
movements that act as a prelude and
epilogue. The composer was trying to
evoke the majesty and mystery of the
Australian wilderness as seen through
an obviously English pair of eyes. To
do this he uses an extremely colorful
orchestral palette and makes the suite’s
forty minutes expanse quite a thrilling
and evocative musical safari. While
ultimately lacking the really big memorable
tunes that one feels ought to be there,
there is enough going on here to make
anyone who loves the sumptuous sounds
of Holst’s The Planets and Bridge’s
The Sea really sit up and take
notice. One will hear obvious echoes
of the former work in The Bush
and this should not come as a surprise
as Holst and Hart were old friends from
their days at the RCM and they corresponded
frequently up until Holst’s death in
1934.
The second work on
the disc, The Idyll for Violin
and Orchestra was written in the composer’s
final year. As a valedictory work it
could not be more appropriate as it
evokes an unmistakable nostalgia for
the land that he left so many years
before. Written in rondo form, it is
a lovely piece with a very distinct
evocation of English folk music mixed
with a strong Elgarian dignity. For
those who love Vaughan Williams’ The
Lark Ascending or Julius Harrison’s
Bredon Hill Rhapsody (recently
released on CD by Dutton Epoch) here
is another violin and orchestra work
to savour.
The performance and
sound quality of both works are excellent.
The recordings derive from ABC broadcasts
from the early 1990s and the accompanying
notes by the conductor Richard Divall
and Dr Peter Treger are quite informative.
For further information about Hart’s
life and musical output one should refer
to the article in Grove cited
above.
To sum up, this CD
is a superb and very gratifying introduction
to an unjustly forgotten composer whose
music, judging by the examples here,
exemplifies all the best features of
early twentieth century English music.
Like many of his fellow composers who
remained at home and achieved much greater
recognition, he was no breaker of new
ground but melodic, colorful and well-crafted
music such as this deserves to be heard.
We should thank the Australian Music
Centre for giving us this opportunity.
Now it is time for Chandos, Dutton Epoch
or another enterprising label to add
Fritz Hart to their burgeoning roster
of English composers whom they have
rescued from obscurity.
Michael Herman
Some additional
CDs to supplement this review:
Edgar
Bainton:
Symphony No.1 "Before Sunrise"
(first movement only entitled Genesis).
Royal Northern College of Music Symphony
Orchestra/Douglas Bostock (+ York Bowen:
Symphony No. 2 and Frederic Austin’s
Symphonic Rhapsody, Spring. ClassicO
404
Edgar
Bainton:
Symphony No.2 in D Minor. BBC Philharmonic/Vernon
Handley (+ Hubert Clifford: Symphony
1940 and John Gough: Serenade for Small
Orcestra). Chandos CHAN 9757
Edgar Bainton: Symphony No. 3
in C Minor. BBC Concert Orchestra/ Vernon
Handley ( + Rutland Boughton: Symphony
No. 1 Oliver Cromwell). Dutton
Epoch CDLX 7185
William Henry Bell: A South
African Symphony [Symphony No. 4?].
National Symphony Orchestra of South
Africa/Peter Marchbank ( + Gideon Fagan:
Concert Overture in D and "Ilala"
(tone poem). Marco Polo 8.223833
George
W. H. Marshall-Hall: Symphony
in E Flat and Adagio Sostenuto (from
Symphony in C Minor). Queensland Theatre
Orchestra/Warren Bebbington. Move
MD 3081
Healy Willan: Symphony No. 2
in C Minor. Edmonton Symphony Orchestra/Uri
Meyer ( + Benjamin Britten: Canadian
Carnival and Four Sea Interludes
from the opera Peter Grimes. CBC
Records SMCD 5123 (out of print
but well worth seeking).
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Richard Divall
(Bush) 
